Collision of Worlds
by freckle.98
Summary: As the new Captain of the Enterprise, Worf must face one of the most dangerous- and unusual- missions of his career
1. Chapter 1

2012

The Doctor was alone again. He had just lost two of his closest companions, Amy Pond and Rory Williams, to the Weeping Angels. He needed to get away from everything. All the Doctor wanted was for the universe to leave him, and the people he loved most, alone. _Just once_, he thought, _surely the universe owes me a favour. _He adjusted his bow tie, and with a quick glance at the central column of the TARDIS, pulled a lever which made the ancient machine suddenly come alive. The Doctor didn't know where he was going, and didn't care, just as long as there were no Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels or anything that reminded him of what he had sacrificed to save people he had never even met, or probably ever would again.

2385

As Worf, newly promoted captain of the Enterprise E, stood alone in the turbolift, he thought about the historic mission he was soon to command. Calculated time travel had been attempted successfully before by Captain Kirk, one of a long line of captains of the starship Enterprise before Worf, but as warp drive changed, the method exploited by Kirk and Spock soon became unusable. Now, with data the Enterprise had collected during the Borg incursion into Sector 001 and the subsequent attempt to prevent First Contact, the Federation's top scientists had discovered how to travel through time. Much had been made of the discovery and initially people were excited by the prospect of journeying into the past and the future. However, the Federation knew that time travel would risk the possibility of a starship from the future changing history, and they did not want to find out what would happen if that occurred. So the Federation had begun developing a new directive, dubbed the 'Temporal Prime Directive'. They intended to only outfit a few ships with time travel technology, and had only tested it so far in simulations. It was with great trepidation that they had decided to fit the first temporal vortex drive to the USS Enterprise. After returning from its five-year mission of exploration Captain Picard had finally accepted a promotion to Admiral and left First Officer Commander Worf to take command of the ship.

_Archer, Kirk, Picard..._Worf couldn't help but wonder whether he would soon join the list of Enterprise captains to command some of the most historic missions in Starfleet's history. Archer had helped found the Federation, Kirk had helped forge an alliance with the Klingon Empire, and Picard had fought off the Borg. Worf knew the ship could handle anything in its path, and he knew its crew was exceptional. Commander LaForge, the chief engineer, had the temporal vortex drive setup just the way he wanted. Doctor Crusher had the best medical experience in Starfleet, and Worf was sure the new senior staff of the Enterprise E would live up to the reports he had heard.

"Captain on the Bridge!" Worf thought to himself that he would never get used to being the subject of that statement. The crew currently on the bridge, mostly Ensigns assigned to supervise the refit the Enterprise had just finished, looked unanimously at Worf. He merely uttered "At ease" and sat down in the centre chair. After Worf looked over reports from various stations across the ship, Chief Miles O' Brien, who had decided to leave Deep Space 9 to become Tactical Officer on the Enterprise E, entered the bridge from the turbolift. "Commander Paris is ready to beam aboard, sir." O' Brien informed Worf. Worf had heard much about Tom Paris, who was to be his new First Officer. After serving on the USS Voyager as helmsman during its seven-year journey through the Delta quadrant, he had become the vessel's First Officer upon its return. When Voyager was decommissioned in 2384, Captain Chakotay had taken command of the USS Sovereign, which had begun testing the new Quantum Slipstream drive, while Tom had spent a year on Earth. Coming with him from Voyager was Lieutenant Harry Kim, who had just finished two years as ops officer aboard the USS Defiant. Worf was intrigued to see how these two would fit in with the longer serving Enterprise crew.


	2. Chapter 2

Geordi LaForge couldn't help wondering why he had stayed on for this mission. He was about to leave Starfleet and do what he had always _really_ wanted to do: design ships. An opportunity had never arisen during his Starfleet career, but now the Vulcan Science Academy had asked him to design a new range of ships that would allow the Vulcans to call upon their own fleet if they required. But right now, he was running around the engineering room of the Enterprise E, frantically trying to triple check every system before the ship left dry dock to undertake the historic 'Time Vortex' mission. Geordi had already put plenty of time and effort into the research of the technology, and he had considered leaving the ship at the same time as Captain Picard. But, eventually, he had decided that leaving the ship with a new captain and a new chief engineer ahead of one of the most important missions in Starfleet history was probably not going to end well.

"Ensign, take us out." Worf had still not become used to being the centre of attention on the bridge, but he knew he would have to. The Ensign at the helm tapped the panels of his console, and slowly, the Enterprise E moved out of the dry dock orbiting Mars. "Prepare to engage a course to Earth on my mark, warp 1." Worf ordered the Ensign at the helm. "Commander LaForge, are the chroniton emitters online and ready?" Worf asked over the comm system. "They sure as hell should be," was the engineers reply, "because I've spent the past three hours checking, double checking and triple checking them." Worf ordered the Ensign at the helm to engage warp 1 and sank into the centre chair. "Ready to make history?" Tom Paris, seated to Worf's left, had remained very quiet until now. With a mumbled "Yes, Mr Paris", Worf looked around the bridge to see the crew under his command. It was only then that he realised the true responsibility that had been placed upon him. He suddenly realised that the lives of these people depended upon his judgement. If he made one wrong move, the people he was looking at, he thought, could wind up dead.

"Bring the emitters online." Tom Paris ordered. A low hum indicated the chroniton emitters were functioning, and Worf knew they were on the verge of making history. As the chroniton particles bounced off the inverted shields of the Enterprise, the ship was bathed in a pale blue glow. Admiral Owen Paris was watching from the USS Sutherland, which was alongside the Enterprise in case of an emergency. As Admiral Paris watched the Enterprise, it began to fade away with a bright white, pulsing light. From the bridge of the Enterprise, the viewscreen was filled by the pulsing light. It lasted for about ten seconds, then the light, and the Enterprise with it, had disappeared. As Owen Paris watched the space where the Enterprise had been, he saw what appeared to be a small crack in space. He watched this for about a minute, as did everyone on the bridge of the Sutherland, before a shockwave suddenly burst out and hit the Sutherland, violently rocking the ship. Two pieces of debris had emerged. Immediately, the captain of the Sutherland ordered for the viewscreen to be magnified on the debris. On one, Admiral Paris could clearly make out the words "U.S.S. Enterprise". The other was a small blue wooden panel, with a corner of white on which the words "Police Box" could just be read. "Could it..." The captain of the Sutherland began to say. "I thought that was just a legend." "It would appear the legends are true." Was Admiral Paris' reply.


	3. Chapter 3

Aboard the bridge of the Enterprise E, Captain Worf watched as his ship traversed a place no Starfleet vessel had been before: the time vortex. It had remained locked away, with no-one having the technology to enter it, since the dawn of time itself. So it came as a large surprise when Lieutenant Harry Kim said "Sir, I'm picking up a vessel on sensors. Approximately 500 metres away, on a collision course. I can't get a fix on its size. The readings are fluctuating massively." "What? I thought no-one in the galaxy had the technology to travel in the time vortex." Commander Tom Paris was clearly confused by the events. "Can you read anything to identify it?" "There appears to be some writing on the hull." Lieutenant Kim responded. "There, I've got it." "Put in on the viewscreen." Worf had decided he needed to take control of the situation immediately. On the side of the hull, he could clearly see the words 'Police Box'.

In the control room of the TARDIS, the Doctor was fiddling with buttons and levers on the central console, as he usually does, when he saw something on the monitor of the TARDIS that shocked him more than almost anything had in a thousand years. On the screen he could see, in the time vortex, the starship Enterprise. And it was heading straight towards the TARDIS. All the doctor could say was "What?!" He immediately decided that a collision was probably inevitable, so decided the best thing to do was just sit back and see what happened. And shout 'Geronimo'.

As Worf realised the Enterprise was going to hit this tiny and yet immensely huge ship, he thought _This should just break apart on the outer hull. But it won't._ For some reason, Worf knew that this ship was not a police box, and it was not made of plain wood. His first officer, Commander Tom Paris, was reminded of an old legend he had heard. Apparently, there was once a time traveller, the last of his kind from a galaxy far away, who often visited Earth on his travels. His name, according to legend, was the Doctor, and he appeared in a blue, 1960's police box. And now, on the starship Enterprise, he was about to crash into a blue, 1960's police box. Tom Paris thought finding a blue 1960's police box in the middle of the time vortex should have been ridiculous. And yet he didn't find it ridiculous at all.

The Doctor saw the Enterprise E hurtling towards his TARDIS, and thought _This is ridiculous. The starship Enterprise in the time vortex. Completely ridiculous._ It was then that the Doctor realised he didn't know which one was hurtling towards him. He had heard about the Enterprise NX-01, because that had been humanity's first starship that was truly capable of interstellar travel. He had also once met the USS Enterprise NCC-1701, the ship of the great Captain Kirk. And he had encountered the Enterprise D before and he had seen the Enterprise J in combat at the Battle of Procyon V. He maintained that he had been a neutral party in that conflict, despite evidence that he had "accidentally" blown up one of the Sphere Builders' ships. But he had never seen any other space-faring Enterprises, leaving an A, B, C, E, F, G, H and I that he knew nothing about. So he supposed that he should probably make an attempt to find out which one of the starship Enterprises he was about to crash into. He pressed a variety of buttons on the monitor and the registry number on the hull of the ship appeared on the screen. U.S.S. Enterprise N.C.C.-1701-E. _E, which one was that? _The Doctor thought to himself. He presumed it had come after the Enterprise D, so he decided it was reasonable to assume some of the crew he had met on the Enterprise D would be on the Enterprise E. He would contact them, he decided, after he had finished crashing into them.


	4. Chapter 4

From the bridge of the USS Enterprise E Captain Worf could hear the sound of metal twisting, grinding and snapping as a small blue wooden box slammed into decks 4 and 5 of his ship. Sparks were flying from consoles and smoke was spraying out from various places around the bridge. Commander Tom Paris was frantically trying to put out the fire that had consumed his first officers chair by wafting his hands at it, which to Harry Kim's amusement was to no avail. Kim was busy reading out damage and injury reports from across the ship, and down in sickbay, Doctor Beverly Crusher was overrun with casualties coming in from all over the place.

The Doctor had been flung across the control room of the TARDIS as it collided with what he had now identified as the starship Enterprise E. He still had not gotten round to trying to figure out what it had been doing in the time vortex to begin with. A rather large part of the Doctor was very excited to find himself in such a strange situation. He was about to contact the Enterprise when the TARDIS lurched about uncontrollably, knocking the Doctor off his feet once more. Explosions surrounded him in the control room as he felt the TARDIS hurtling towards...something. He just wasn't sure what, and wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

As the sparks stopped flying, the fires were put out and the ship stopped lurching about, Captain Worf returned to his chair to discover the damage done to the Enterprise. Commander Paris showed some reservations about sitting back down in his now slightly scorched chair, but decided it was probably safe. Worf then remembered that the captain's chair was equipped with a seatbelt, and thought to himself that it would have more useful to recall that information about two minutes earlier. Just as everyone returned to their stations, the ship started careering through space. Space. Worf noticed that the Enterprise had left the time vortex. The question now was where. As the ship lurched around Worf felt the ship caught by the gravity of a planet. A few seconds later a planet appeared on the viewscreen. A blue, green and white planet: Earth. Worf immediately ordered Lieutenant Kim to hail Starfleet Command. Harry's response was "I'm not picking up any Starfleet signals within sensor range. No ships, Starbases, colonies, nothing." Worf then realised that the question was not where, but when.

The Doctor could Earth rapidly approaching on the monitor as sparks came at him from all directions. He knew where he was, just not when he was, although that was a feeling he had gotten used to by now. He had also been through the feeling of crashing on Earth before, except that had caused him to have to rebuild the TARDIS (except it did most of that itself) and he didn't want to be stuck for too long again. He just wanted to find somewhere that he could be left alone. Maybe a cloud or something. The Doctor went to the door of the control room and looked out over the planet he was headed towards. He then noticed that the starship Enterprise into which he had just crashed had overtaken on its course towards Earth. His only thought was 'Geronimo'.

As Commander Paris, having taken over the helm, attempted to level the descent of the Enterprise E, he thought that he saw a stone castle on the ground below. He knew only a few were left on Earth in the 24th century, but there were many of them in the Middle Ages, when people like the Saxons and the Normans occupied Europe. The thought then crossed his mind that this could be where, or more precisely, when, they had ended up. Or, more precisely, when they were about to crash. When Tom realised there was nothing he could do as the ship was about to hit the ground of Medieval Earth, he decided the best thing to do was hold on to his chair for dear life. The Enterprise hit the ground with an almighty crash of metal hitting earth, and dug up trees, grass and leaves as it careered along the ground. Luckily, Tom thought, they didn't appear to hit any settlements or buildings , and they soon came to rest. Then, on the viewscreen that had settled on showing the rear of the ship, Tom saw the blue police box crash into ground a few metres from the starboard nacelle with a decidedly less dramatic thump.


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor climbed out of the TARDIS, uninjured only due to the fact that the swimming pool had broken his fall when the TARDIS slammed into the ground. As he surveyed his surroundings he could see no real clues as to where he had landed or when it was. He decided that as there was a considerable number of trees in the vicinity it probably wasn't the Sahara desert, although beyond that he didn't know where on earth the TARDIS had dumped him. There was no sign of civilisation, and the only sign of human interference was the large trail of mangled trees, plants and mud stretching for a few hundred metres behind the starship Enterprise which lay, half buried in mud, next to the TARDIS.

On the darkened bridge of the Enterprise E, Captain Worf was reading the few displays still working. He asked Lieutenant Harry Kim for a damage report. "We've got hull breaches on decks 4, 5 and 27 to 29. Main power is down, and engines are offline." This was not the news Worf had been hoping for, but he had expected the damage to be severe. Worf knew it would take a lot of work to get the damaged systems operational, and even then they might not be able to get the ship off the ground again. "Are the sensors online, Mr Kim?" Worf barked. "I can give you short range sensors, but we haven't got the power for long range scans." Kim replied in a rather pessimistic tone. "Scan for life signs outside the ship." Worf did not make his reasoning clear to the Lieutenant, but Kim carried out the order anyway. He already got the sense Worf knew what he was doing in command of a starship. Worf, however, was still having doubts about himself. "Well, Lieutenant?" "I'm picking up one life sign, and I don't know what it is." Worf was slightly annoyed by Harry's rather vague response. He got the feeling he would spend a lot of time in the future being annoyed.

The Doctor had decided he should try and find a way into the Enterprise, but he had no idea how he should go about it. He knew it would be quite disrespectful to just blast a hole in the hull, but he also decided knocking wasn't really an option. He looked for anything that might indicate the presence of a door, as it was unlikely anyone had left a window open. The Doctor doubted that the windows could open. Humans wouldn't have concentrated on that particular luxury, he mused. He spied what appeared to be a large door on the back of the ship, and approached it with a degree of stealth. He wasn't sure how it would help, but decided stealth might be a good approach this time. As he opened the door with his sonic screwdriver, he realised this was the shuttlebay door, and therefore a better parking place than the one the TARDIS had chosen for him. He entered the ship carefully, as he didn't want to be responsible for more damage, and worked his way through a seemingly endless maze of corridors and hallways. He eventually found a computer terminal and used the sonic screwdriver to bring up a map. He discovered he was on deck 17, and that main engineering was only one deck up. He decided that might be a nice place to visit.

In Engineering, Commander Geordi LaForge was waving smoke away from a console as he tried to find out what was going on in the rest of the ship. He had tried establishing a comm link to the bridge, but it seemed that the entire comm system was down. In fact, it seemed like most systems were down. Most of the displays and consoles on deck 16 were blank, and the turbolifts weren't working either. As engineers rushed frantically around trying to fix various EPS relays, Geordi noticed a small door hidden in a corner behind a sparking console had opened. As he ran round to get a better view of the reason for the door's opening, he could not believe what he saw. A man in a bow tie and a fez was leant on the doorway, and simply said "Hello. I'm the Doctor."


	6. Chapter 6

On the bridge of the USS Enterprise, the lights came to life and illuminated the room brightly. Displays blinked back on and the bridge started to look functional again. This was a result of four hours of fiddling with plasma relays by Harry Kim and Tom Paris, who seemed happy to be working alongside each other for the first time since Kim had left to join the USS Defiant. Worf appeared pleased with their work, and asked Lieutenant Kim for an update on the situation.

"We've got main power back online, but the engines are going to take some more work." Kim replied. Worf was not sure how long 'some' would take, but decided not to enquire further.

Commander Tom Paris tapped his comm badge in an attempt to get through to Geordi LaForge in engineering. All he could hear was a lot of static and some muffled shouting. Soon, Doctor Beverly Crusher contacted the bridge to say that there had been no major injuries, so Tom decided to try and get to engineering and find out what was going on. Finding that the turbolifts were still offline, he did not look forward to the prospect of sixteen decks of Jefferies tubes.

The Doctor had not been best pleased by the faces- and weapons- that had greeted him in engineering, and after seemingly endless questioning about what he was doing there and whether he had caused them to crash, he decided engineering had not been the best place to go after all. When Tom Paris arrived, not looking best pleased, Geordi LaForge greeted him with the words

"He says he's 'The Doctor'."

"He is" was Tom's reply. The Doctor was relieved to have someone finally believe him.

After Tom explained to the Doctor that the Enterprise was testing an experimental time travel device, and that it had been running fine until his box had crashed into them, the Doctor started to understand what had happened.

"Your computer can't handle the flux in the vortex, so it can't navigate. Then of course the ...wibbley wobbley... timey wimey... things attracted together and well, it got a bit messy. It wasn't my fault." Somehow the Doctor felt his protests of innocence would not be believed.

Worf told Lieutenant Kim to make engines the first priority, and then left in the now functioning turbolifts to head to engineering, having heard about the situation from his first officer. Kim soon left too, saying he was going to "scavenge some parts from a shuttlecraft" to try and fix the engines with. This left Chief Miles O'Brien in charge of the bridge. Settling into the centre chair, O'Brien was alerted by a beep which he knew meant something had been picked up on sensors. Going over to investigate, he saw that a group of five human life-signs were only thirty kilometres from the ship.

O'Brien contacted Captain Worf over the comm system and informed him of the discovery.

"How long until they reach us?" Worf could not hide the anxiety in his voice.

"I would say about five, maybe six hours before they get through the forest around us. It's pretty thick, but they'll get through it, and I don't doubt that they've already seen us." O'Brien did not bother to try and make the situation sound better than it was. He knew Worf wanted to hear it how it was, no matter how bad it was.

"When will engines be back online?" Worf's voice regained its sense of authority as he asked this.

"Lieutenant Kim says he can get impulse working in fifteen hours, but the warp drive will take about three days."

"Tell Mr Kim that he has four hours to get them both online." With this order, Worf closed the channel.


	7. Chapter 7

Engineering was engulfed in frenzied activity. Captain Worf had given the crew of the USS Enterprise the seemingly impossible task of bringing impulse and warp drive online in what was now only two hours. Commander Geordi LaForge was sprinting from deck to deck, checking the progress of each repair team. From the reports he was getting, he knew they probably wouldn't get a foot off the ground before every engine on the ship blew up. He had been in seemingly impossible situations before, but he was still highly sceptical.

"All senior officers report to the briefing room immediately." Worf wanted an update on the situation. He appreciated that the task he had set his crew was very difficult, maybe even impossible, but it still needed to be done. As soon as Commander LaForge entered the doorway Worf asked

"Can we get this ship off the ground in 90 minutes from now, Mr LaForge?"

"Would you like my honest opinion, sir?" Worf knew that this was not usually followed by good news, but nodded anyway. "She'll get off the ground, but she won't stay there. And most likely she won't stay in one piece either."

The rather frank assessment of the situation made by Geordi LaForge was met by displeased faces from the three officers who had just entered the room. Commander Tom Paris was the first to speak.

"So what do we do? We can't stay here and we can't take off. Is there any way to initialise the vortex drive on the ground?"

"Not unless we want to split the planet into five hundred and forty seven pieces," replied Geordi LaForge. "I ran a test in the holodeck half an hour ago."

"Maybe I can help." No-one had noticed the Doctor appear in the corner of the room.

"All you need to do is get the ship off the ground and my TARDIS will tow you back to the 23rd century. Should have repaired herself by now."

"24th century, Doctor." Tom Paris somehow relished the opportunity to correct the Doctor he had heard legends about many years ago.

"Alright, I'm only a century out."

"For a man with a time machine that's a very worrying thing to hear." Miles O'Brien wasn't sure about entrusting the fate of Starfleet's flagship to who appeared to be a madman in a box.

"Do you want my help or not." The Doctor was becoming frustrated at the lack of respect he was receiving.

"Well, considering what you've already managed..." This comment from O'Brien was the last straw for the Doctor.

"Without me you wouldn't be here. I've know things you can't even comprehend. I've met aliens you won't ever hear of for millions of years. I was there at the formation of your planet, and I will be there at the end of it too. I've saved your planet from Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarens and all manner of other species you've never met. And not once has your planet thanked me. So if you don't want my help... it's your loss." The tone of the Doctor's voice drove everyone into submission. "Like I said, get the ship off the ground, and I'll take it from there."

"Can that box really tow this ship?" Harry Kim could not help having doubts.

"She towed Earth all the way from the Medusa Cascade. This ship is a pencil case to her. Just give me some sort of large energy source to lock on to."

"Will the warp core be Ok?" asked Commander Paris. He had no chance to get a reply as the Doctor had already left for the TARDIS.

Worf now had only one problem: how to get the ship off the ground without any engines. He himself had no ideas, and a twenty minute discussion with his first officer had also been fruitless. The door chime of the ready room went off.

"Enter" said Worf in no attempt to hide his frustration. Tactical officer Miles O'Brien came into the room.

"I think I can get the ship off the ground. The shockwave from a photon torpedo should propel us off ground enough for the Doctor to get a lock." This idea not occurred to either Captain Worf or Commander Paris. Worf decided it might just work, too. At least, it was their best shot.


End file.
